Monday, October 3, 2011

That's just my luck!

It's a windy day and you're walking to your car in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  You walk out the door just in time to see one of those battle-ready carts screaming toward your car.  You're too far away to stop it, but close enough to hear the wonderful sound of a metal-on-metal collision.  And then you say it.  "That's just my luck!"

Now, imagine that the cart, instead of crashing into the side of your car, goes careening through the parking right past your car and comes to rest against the cart return.  Would you say the same thing?  "That's just my luck!"

It seems that we have this false perception that bad things always happen to us.  That our "luck" just isn't that great.  I don't think that's always the case.

First, to quote my 6-year-old daughter, "there's no luck involved."  It's just life and sometimes bad things happen.  And second, I don't think our "luck" is generally all that bad (remember, bad circumstances that are the result of bad decisions are not "bad luck").  [For the antagonists... are there exceptions?  Of course.]

The difference between good luck and bad luck is often in what we choose to remember.

We can remember every time that someone opened their car door into ours, but we've chosen to forget every time that someone was extra careful even when we may have parked a little too close.  We can remember every time the grocery bag ripped on the way to the car, but have chosen forget the thousands of bags that we've carried without incident.

So, let's remember that our "luck" may not be as bad as we think.  We may just need to change what we're choosing to remember.